A Slow Burn
by sweetp-1
Summary: She wants to touch him so badly - will she get burnt or will he set her heart on fire? Winner of the Cherry Popper award for the Loved for the Unloved contest. O/S


**"Love for the Unloved" Contest Entry**

**Title: A Slow Burn**

**Your pen name(s): Sweetp-1**

**Featured "B-list" Character(s): Angela/Ben**

**If you would like to see all the stories that are a part of this contest visit the "Love for the Unloved" C2 Community:**

**http://www****(DOT)fanfiction(DOT)net/community/Love_for_the_Unloved_Contest/72809/**

**SM owns it all, I'm just having a little fun writing my first ever fanfic.****Thank you to Beth, Shelley, MAH & AzureEyedI for beta-ing and holding my hand and to Maylin, my enabler extraordinaire, for saving this from the delete button.****  
**

~*~

She could feel the tears bristling at the back of her eyes.

As she often did when her emotions threatened to engulf her, she imagined the moment emblazoned across the front page of the newspaper. Now the headline read _"Small town girl bids tearful goodbye to overprotective father."_ She was weary from a lifetime of leading up to this moment and a week of spilling tears at every goodbye.

She slammed the car door and tried not to be intimidated by the building which towered above her, pushing against the skyline. Eight floors of identical windows representing a wall of strangers who she would be sharing her life with for the next 12 months. One of those windows was going to be hers. Her new home. Except, this couldn't be home. Home was an aging villa with squeaky floorboards in Forks, home was the smell of freshly baked cookies and the sound of her twin brothers' playful banter, home was not here. Home was not being alone.

She took a deep breath, desperately trying to calm the lead butterflies that had taken up residence in her stomach. Her palms were sweaty and raw with nervousness as she made her way to the door, her feet dragging with sadness, her heart leaping in anticipation.

Her window was on the third floor. Her window looked over chimneys, TV antennas and multi-colored rooftops laid out like a patchwork of colored game tiles. In the distance she could just make out a green expanse – if she squinted hard it almost looked like the same green as home. Directly below her room she watched as the parking lot filled with goodbyes and new beginnings.

She carefully placed her trinkets and photos on the shelves. Her hand and thoughts lingered over each one and the memories they were wrapped in. It felt somehow wrong to be placing little pieces of her past in this odd little room, knowing that as she did she was marking and claiming it as her own. She wished that unpacking had taken up more than just a few short minutes of the emptiness; too soon she was finished and officially moved in. She wondered what the hell she was supposed to do now.

~*~

She found Jessica and Lauren in the dorm's shared bathroom. Jessica talked too much and tried to hide her insecurities and bad skin with dresses that left little to the imagination. Lauren had a sense of humor and made crass jokes about her privileged background. They were both generous and accepting and as desperate for friendship as she was. Suddenly the prospect of being there seemed less daunting.

Books pressed to chest she made her way to the lecture halls, libraries and cafeterias and began her new life as a University student. Campus was no longer an enigma, a mysterious prize held tantalizingly out of her reach. For so long she had imagined how it would be to walk amongst others who thirsted for knowledge like she did, who wanted to be there, who weren't just along for the ride because they were too young to be doing anything else. And now she was actually here, cocooned by regal buildings that seemed to ooze endless possibilities and promises from their ancient stone walls. Campus, as she discovered, was a treasure trove of secrets and knowledge and she couldn't wait to rub her hands in it.

~*~

The Biology lab started late in the afternoon. The orange sun, dark and already low in the sky, cast long shadows across her desk. A figure cut through the hazy autumn light to sit beside her, books thumping on the shiny counter top, chair scraping through the silence of her daydreams.

He smelled divine.

Boys at school had not smelled like this. Boys at school had smelled of stale locker rooms and acne cream, the reek of testosterone-fuelled false bravado, cloying and nauseating. He smelled of sunshine and salt, musk and something tantalizingly masculine. The smell of him was enticing, inviting and most pleasant - and it surprised her. Without realizing, she leaned over to be closer to him, to take another breath of him.

Her own breath hitched and caught in her throat as his lips forced themselves into a half attempted smile. His lips were full and she noticed there was the slightest whisper of a shadow across the top of his mouth, the tiny stubbly hairs darkest black against his olive tan. Mortified she realized the eyes behind the smile were shining with amusement and that she was still staring shamelessly. Her face flushed in an instant and she dropped her eyes to her desk, wishing she was one of those girls who knew how to say witty and coherent things in the face of pretty boys. Instead, she opted for awkward silence and as much as she wanted to look at him again she hoped she wouldn't need to, hoped that she could get through the class without her burning face steaming up her glasses. She desperately tried to regain control, pretending to be engrossed in anything that wasn't him.

The three hour lab passed in a blur. In front of her someone had droned on about laboratory safety and course requirements. Afterwards she hadn't been able to remember a single word of the lecture, couldn't recall filling two pages of her notebook. She had remembered that he had used a green pen, writing in a scrawled and unpredictable script across the page. She had remembered how the dying sun had shed little shafts of amber colored light, how they had bounced off his black hair like little sparks. At the end of the lecture he had stood and murmured "I'm Ben. See you next week." She cringed recalling how her own voice had sounded ragged and strained as she had stuttered over her own name: "Angela".

~*~

Her days were filled with so many new experiences she thought she might burst. Her senses overloaded with a symphony of new smells and sights and tastes, her mind reeling and fascinated by everything she heard and read. She met more people in her first week than she had known in all her life previous. Her new world was intriguing and satisfying and the small town girl in her drank it up hungrily as every day her horizons widened. Her life had become a whirlwind of new adventures and before she had a chance to catch her breath she was sitting next to him again.

He was even more alluring than last time.

She forced herself to concentrate on the requirements of the lab, trying to ignore how an innocent brush of his fingers on her hand set her skin on fire. He asked her a question about the slides under the microscope and she blushed under the gaze of his deep brown eyes. She tried to remind herself that being at University was expensive and important and this was not the time to lose focus in infatuation. But still, she could not help herself stealing glances of him when she thought he wasn't looking.

She wondered where he had come from and about his past, about his family and friends. She wanted to know what he did when he was alone and what were the fears that kept him awake at night, what music sang to his soul and what made his heart fly. She wanted to share in the memories that had sculpted and shaped him, to ask him what lit up his dreams and what was buried in his nightmares. What his favorite color was and what flavor ice cream he liked best.

Like putting together pieces of a puzzle, she wanted to unlock the mystery of him and learn his every secret. There was nothing as important as collecting little pieces of him.

~*~

From far across the crowded cafeteria she watched him at the table with his friends. She envied the naturalness of their interactions with him, imagining the ease of the conversation she was too far away to hear. Every carefree laugh and throw away touch only made her all the more aware of how she was not like that around him. She imagined what it would be like to walk over and sit beside him, to join in the group of beautiful people, to be one of them. She wished she could talk to him about things that mattered, to be with him outside of that sterile lab that smelled of formaldehyde. She wished she could be free and natural around him, no longer betrayed by flushed face and racing heart, no longer trapped in a perpetual state of self-consciousness.

Mostly she just wished she could find the courage to break through the wall of her own insecurities and do something. Something like reaching over and running her fingers through his hair, like touching the little scar on his cheek and asking him how it came to be there, like tasting the breath on his lips. She wanted to touch him so bad it almost hurt.

~*~

The lab finished as darkness enveloped the campus. Her heart leapt as he fell into step beside her, his body giving off a comforting dull warmth in the biting night air. The normally bustling paths were empty and silent and it wasn't hard for her to pretend that they were all alone in the world, embraced in the beautiful eerie stillness. The stone buildings she loved to wander past during the day looked like something from a romantic fairytale illuminated by the soft glow of ground lights. Everything around her seemed more beautiful, more real, like she was seeing the world for the first time. But then, it was always this way when he was with her. He filled the silence with words she barely heard, her eyes fixated on the way his mouth moved and the way his hair hung over his eyes no matter how many times he flicked it out of the way, the sound of his voice like a song that had been written only for her. When he left her at her door she felt his departure like a physical pain, stabbing and twisting cruelly through her pathetic desires. Her heart ached longingly with every step he took away from her.

That was the first night she dreamed of Ben Cheney. In the morning she would recall her dream self feeling empty inside, searching for something nameless, something that lurked at the deepest corner of her mind. No matter how hard she tugged, it always slipped through her fingers, remaining in the shadows. And then he was there. Wrapping her in strong arms and covering her in the scent of sunshine, cinnamon and musk. He had whispered sweet nothings in her ear and made her skin prickle as his fingers swept over her cheek. She had come home and there was nothing left to search for.

~*~

Thoughts of him consumed her days. Sometimes she indulged herself, recalling every encounter, every spoken word, playing her mind's montage of images of him on continuous loop. Drowning herself in a make believe world where he returned her feelings. Sometimes in the dark of the night she imagined it wasn't her own hands playing out her deepest darkest desires. More often than not, however, she would berate herself for falling for someone who couldn't possibly feel the same way. Shamefully she would linger on her every imperfection, every awkward thing she had said and done in front of him, cursing herself for not being confident, pretty, desirable.

~*~

The music was loud, she could feel it filling every space inside her, filling her up to the brim until she thought she might not be able to sneak in a breath. The beat reverberated inside her chest making its own sweet music with the alcohol in her veins, making her body glow. She laughed as her friends swept her with them to join in the beating throng of people pushing closer to the stage. She danced and whirled, letting the music carry her, reveling in complete abandon as the music pulsated deep within her. She wanted to feel this overwhelming sense of freedom all the time. Every so often she searched the room for a glimpse of him, scanning the room for the mop of black hair she would recognize in a heartbeat, hoping to the bottom of her stomach that he would be there. It had taken every ounce of her courage to tell him about the concert and suggest he should come. He'd been noncommittal and she'd tried her hardest not to anticipate, to hope, to dream. But her overactive imagination couldn't be tamed. She wanted him to come more than anything but swallowed her hope down by telling herself he would have better things to do. She was nothing more than his lab partner. An invite from her was not going to be the highlight of his weekend. But he was the highlight of her week. He was the everything of her week.

As the night wore on she realized he wasn't coming. The high of euphoria slid away, surly and scornful, soon replaced by the prickling pain of rejection and disappointment. She threw back the bottles in defiance, desperately hoping the alcohol would burn out every last flicker of hopefulness. The room began to spin and the edges of her vision blurred. She didn't care. She only cared for the numbness. She couldn't even bring herself to care when bodies pushed and rubbed against her. The music and unfamiliar arms held her up while the corners of the room swayed and folded in front of her.

And then he was standing in front of her.

She laughed that even in the depths of drunken oblivion it was his face that haunted her. She tried to keep her eyes open, afraid that if she gave in to the fog that swirled at the edges of herself her eyes would close and he would disappear. She didn't want this strangely realistic vision of him to disappear. If this night was going to drown her in nothingness then his face was the last thing she wanted to see. She wondered vaguely if someone had spiked her drink with something or perhaps she was going slowly mad. Angel-like hallucinations had never visited her drunken stupors before. She wanted to be angry at him for ruining her perfect night, for being impossibly out of reach, for making her life a misery of unanswered longing but instead she let the exquisite vision of him take her in his arms and lead her out of the crowded, sweaty room.

Later she would recall stumbling home, wrapped in his strong safe arms. She remembered leaning against him as the world spun crooked on its axis, his chuckle as she murmured incoherent randomness in his ear. She remembered him unlocking the door and taking off her shoes before wrapping her up in her bed. But mostly she would remember him leaning over her and kissing her softly, sweetly, tenderly.

She liked to remember that often.

~*~

Normally the days would pass in a meaningless blur, their importance only measured by how fast they propelled her towards seeing him again. For once she wished time would slow down so she could work out how she could ever look him in the eye now he had seen her at her embarrassing worst. She feared that her inebriated mouth had shared the secrets of her heart, and that now he knew her every desire he would be revolted by what he saw there. She told herself that the kiss had been a figment of her imagination and that it hadn't really happened at all. But that didn't stop her thinking of it often.

Too soon she had no choice but to face him again. With a cruel twist of fate the lab seemed to pass at a tortuously slow pace. She surrendered to her humiliation and sat marinating in her embarrassment, daring him to speak of the things most on her mind. Every second of his silence amplified her discomfort, until finally, mercifully it ended. She flew to the door to escape him and the things left unsaid. She ran all the way back home with the wind crying in her ears. She didn't look back.

~*~

She woke with a start, eyes open but unfocused. The darkness blurred, shapes seeming to form in front of her eyes before melting into nothingness. For the longest second she couldn't remember where she was. The tapping sound that had woken her forced her to turn on the light and reach for her glasses, and before her body could acknowledge her mind's unease she was at the window peeling back the corner of her curtain.

She peered into the darkness on the other side of her window, half expecting to see the bogeyman or some other nightmare from her childhood. Instead, it was him. Perched precariously on the ledge outside her window, eyes closed, his forehead pressed to the glass. She watched the circle where his breath hit the cold glass grow with each outward breath. It made the glass look like it was warped and distorted, like it might melt away under her fingertips if she pushed hard enough and her hands would pass right through to touch him.

She pulled back the window, and he climbed into her room bringing a gust of frigid night air with him. She took a deep breath, trying to still her coiled nerves, worried he would see that she didn't know what to say or do. The reek of alcohol assaulted her senses as he brushed past her to collapse on the bed. She looked at him in disbelief. She had imagined him in her room so many times before, and now that he was, she found herself wondering if this was another dream or hallucination. She wanted to ask him how he had scaled her building without falling to his death, and a thousand other questions. But before a word could form on her lips he reached out his hand, beckoning for her; and so, she went to him.

"Beautiful" he whispered against her shoulder, his breath searing across her skin. For the first time she was willing to believe she was.

When she was sure he was asleep she finally allowed herself to touch his face, drawing her finger across his jawline, the faintest whisper of stubble prickling under her fingertips. The sound of his slumbered breathing lulled her off to her own contented sleep.

In the morning she found the note he had left while she slept. She whispered the words to herself before folding it into a tiny square and placing it under the pillow.

~*~

Semester break arrived and she made arrangements to go home. The reassurance of being amongst the familiar did little to ease the ache that gnawed away at her insides. Her family was her comfort, but she missed him. He was not there and a piece of her was empty because of it.

~*~

She stands against the wind as it whips against her, teasing the end of her long scarf into a frenzied dance around the edges of her body. Her hair billows around her like a halo as she pushs her hands deep into the pockets of her coat. Her face and body show no sign of the wind's assault; like a statue she is still, impervious to such incidentals as the weather. Her body's stillness belies her heart which races and pounds in her chest, wild like the wind that swirls around her. Classes finish and suddenly there is a sea of bodies sweeping against her, filling in the space between them.

At that moment he looks over to see her standing there alone, a silhouette against the black clouded horizon, an unmoving rock that parts the sea of bodies walking around her. He sees the need and hunger in her eyes and leans over to murmur apologies to his friends before turning to go to her.

He stands before her and she aches to take his hands in hers. Her heart is pounding so fast and so hard she closes her mouth in case it escapes out her throat. She wants to say something, anything but the words are frozen and so she says nothing at all. Her face, a moment ago cast in stone concentration, cracks and she feels the relief as a small smile escapes. He smiles in return. Their hands meet in the space between them. She lets out the breath she didn't know she was holding as she feels his hand curl into hers.

The clouds above them, heavy and pregnant, rumble their presence. Flecks of rain start to fall, soft and chaste, caressing and comforting them like a lover's feathery kiss. They begin to walk. She lets him lead her by the hand, willing to follow him wherever it is he will take her. The rain begins to fall heavier now, persistent and relentless, washing away and renewing. They don't notice the droplets of rain that fall into their eyes or that their clothing has become slippery and stuck to their bodies.

In his room he stands in front of her and gently and slowly peels off her jacket. He drops it to the floor where it lies in a tangled heap, rivulets of water seeping out into the carpet. He lifts the bottom of her sweater and pulls it up over her head as she raises her arms in quiet abandon. He kneels before her, reverently sliding her from her shoes, holding her legs delicately like she might break under his touch. Layer after layer of soaked fabric falls to the floor as he slowly strips her bare of her clothing and her every insecurity. She closes her eyes as he takes a soft towel from the cupboard and tenderly dries her, patting away the rain and covering her in slow soothing strokes. The towel falls to the floor and she opens her eyes to find herself covered in his adoring gaze. His eyes are hooded, dark with desire and longing. She is surprised the girl who meets his gaze is not blushing or awkward.

He takes her face in his beautiful hands and finally kisses her. Warm lips and soft tongue meet her own in desire, dissolving away the words which are no longer needed - in his mouth she finds the answer to the only question which really matters.

For the briefest of moments her thoughts drift to old and uncomfortable memories. She remembers the after prom party when she had let Eric Yorkie touch her with cold fingers and fill her mouth with kisses that tasted of beer. In the back of his parent's car he had pushed himself inside of her and she had willingly given him the tiny drop of blood in exchange for the empty experience.

The memories fade away quickly, insignificant against the feel of Ben's hands on her body and the sweet taste of his breath. She realizes she has never needed anything as much as she needs this; needs him.

Her hands seek out the secrets of his body, exploring their way over muscle and bone and coming to rest over his heart. His heartbeat under her fingertips echoes the rhythm of her own. She leans against his chest, drinking in deep breaths of him and enveloping herself in his scent.

He lays her on his bed, the sheets cool under her back where the water from her hair bleeds out in a dark pool beneath her. His body burns hot above her as his fingers leave a trail of fiery sparks over her skin. She wonders if she might simply combust under the intensity of his touch and the intensity of the desire which scorches her from the inside.

Outside, the rain beats down on the tin roof, an echo of the storm of emotions and longing that swirl around and surround them. Lightning cracks against the darkened sky, illuminating their bodies in a flash of white heat. Her heart thunders in her chest and roars in her ears as their bodies intertwine.

Their kisses and caresses are no longer careful or apologetic as tentativeness gives way to hunger, their movements now vivid and purposeful. His tongue blazes over her body making her moan his name. The fire he ignites in her threatens to engulf her, she finds it hard to draw a breath against his heat, her own overwhelming need liquefying between her legs.

"I want you" she whispers into his kiss.

He gives himself to her then, thrusting into her as if she might melt away if he holds back one second longer.

There is nothing else in the world but him.

She sinks in rapture as his body fills her with the sweetest rhythm, rocking and pushing into her, making her a part of him. The waves of pleasure sweep over her as their bodies meet and meld together, sliding against each other in the sweetest of ways. She runs her fingers through his hair and catches the little bead of sweat that runs across his jaw, burning the image of him above her into her memories forever.

The bliss bubbles under her skin, erupting suddenly as her ecstasy crashes around her and she clings to him, clutching his back as if to anchor herself as she drowns in her release. His movements raw and untamed push him furiously to his own end. His quickened breath, hot and wet, fills her ears as he murmurs "I'm yours".

They lie entangled together as the evening descends, the sound of the rain echoing the beat of his heart in her ear as she falls asleep with her head cushioned on his chest.

~*~

Once again she lies in his arms, wearing only his faded tee-shirt and a blanket of contentment.

There is nothing else in the world but him.

~*~

**Thank you for reading! I would love it if you would leave me a review – it's my first time so please be gentle****.**


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